Sandra Behne / Bongarts/Getty Images

Maya Pedersen won gold in the skeleton Thursday evening in Turin, Italy. But, more surprisingly after what fans saw in the luge events, not a single skeleton crashed in either run.

updated 4:21 p.m. ET Feb. 16, 2006

CESANA, Italy - Brilliant start, and promising, too. Then little problems started piling up for Katie Uhlaender while she skittered headfirst down the mountainside, eyes darting about the ice, desperate to find slivers of seconds that separate medals from maybes.

And when it was over Thursday night, the former skier from Breckenridge, Colo., watched the winners hoist themselves onto the podium, sighed softly, and smiled.

“I know I could have been on that podium,” Uhlaender said. “But I’ll take it. My first Olympics, my third season ever in the sport. I’m 21 years old. I’ve got plenty of time.”

Uhlaender, America’s lone entry in the 15-woman field, was sixth. Switzerland’s Maya Pedersen, who returned to the sport less than two years after becoming a mother, won in 1 minute, 59.83 seconds, 1.23 seconds better than Britain’s Shelley Rudman, who won her nation’s first medal of the Turin Games.

No medal, no problem, said Uhlaender’s family — who toasted her work with wine and cheese not far from the Olympic track as night fell in Cesana.

“It was marvelous! When you have a daughter who is competing in front of the world, you have to be proud,” said Karen Uhlaender, Katie’s mother. “I know I’ll be in Vancouver four years from now.”

Canada’s Mellisa Hollingsworth-Richards, the World Cup overall champion, won the bronze. Germany’s Diana Sartor — three months pregnant but cleared by doctors to race — was fourth, and Italy’s Costanza Zanoletti fifth, 0.13 seconds ahead of Uhlaender’s combined time of 2:02.30.

“I missed sliding,” Pedersen said, explaining why she returned. “I missed skeleton and I wanted to get back.”

Uhlaender’s year started with the loss of teammate Noelle Pikus-Pace to a broken leg. Suddenly, she — with two seasons experience in a sport she’d never heard of until after the 2002 Salt Lake Games — was the best American women’s racer and now the choice to try and match Tristan Gale’s gold or Lea Ann Parsley’s silver from those games.

“A lot of what has to do with this sport is getting a lot — a lot — of time on these European tracks. And for Katie to come out and do as well as she has, that says a lot about her,” Parsley said.

Slide show   Emotional Moments Feb. 26: See photos of athletes' highs and lows from Sunday.

Consecutive bronze-medal finishes to open the World Cup season boosted Uhlaender’s confidence, which plummeted in the quagmire that plagued the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation. Coach Tim Nardiello was accused of sexual harassment, then cleared, then fired anyway. Men’s slider Zach Lund was suspended one year for using a hair-restoration pill that includes a banned substance. Bickering within the team was common.

She admitted that yes, she’s happy this season is over.

“It’s all about how you handle it and I think that’s part of being an elite-level athlete,” Uhlaender said. “Anyone in life has problems that they deal with in situations. It’s all about your mentality. That’s how you win this sport. When a bad situation comes up or when you make a mistake, you’ve got to handle it smoothly.”

She supports Nardiello and continued picking his brain for tips and help, as recently as Wednesday at the Olympic track.

“We did what we could,” Uhlaender said.

Meanwhile, the trio of American men’s Olympians — Eric Bernotas, Kevin Ellis and Chris Soule — race here Friday. Bernotas and Ellis finished third and fourth in the overall World Cup standings this season, and Soule is a former World Cup champ.